President Trump's "America First" policy could have a huge impact on Silicon Valley. (Molly Riley-Pool/Getty Images)

Taher Baderkhan, one of the founders of New York-based virtual reality company YouVisit, is an American success story. An immigrant from Jordan, he came to the U.S. as a student, then worked under an H-1B visa, and, once he got his green card, was able to work full-time at a company he started with two other immigrants. Today YouVisit employs 90 people.

“The U.S. is the best market in the world to start a company because it is very entrepreneurial in spirit. Many foreigners come to the U.S. to escape the bad economies they had back home and to seek better opportunities. However, for foreigners starting a company without a sponsorship, it is a major risk,” Baderkhan said.

Baderkhan knows that risk well. After graduation, he worked for Accenture, which sponsored his visa as well as his application for permanent residency, or “green card.” That’s when things got tricky. Because H-1B visas are tied to employment, if a person with an H-1B visa loses their job, they need to find another one within a few weeks to avoid being deported.

While grateful to Accenture for sponsoring his visa, Baderkhan couldn’t leave his job to join a startup without jeopardizing his legal status in the U.S. He also wasn’t able to leave the U.S. to visit his family in Jordan because while his H-1B visa allowed him to stay, leaving and re-entering was another matter. And because Baderkhan is Arab, male, and Muslim from Jordan, getting a stamp for re-entry required a special, additional security check that could have taken anywhere from two weeks to six months. Not willing to take that risk of losing his legal status in the U.S., Baderkhan didn’t visit Jordan for six years.

Today, those hardships for foreign entrepreneurs in the U.S. have increased, thanks to uncertainty about immigration. Trump’s Muslim ban, increased vetting of H-1B visas, and the uncertain fate of the international entrepreneur rule – or “startup visa” - a proposed regulation by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. With so much uncertainty about immigration and travel, Silicon Valley insiders say some foreign entrepreneurs are looking elsewhere.

“If starting a company increases the risk of foreigners getting deported because they lose their visa status, many of them would avoid the hassle. I would have been one of those individuals, for certain,” said Baderkhan.

Chasing the American Dream

Immigrant success stories like Baderkhan’s are not uncommon. Despite making up 13% of the overall U.S. population, immigrants play an outsized role in America’s startup scene. According to a report by the Kauffman Foundation, a nonprofit focused on entrepreneurship and education, 24% of tech and engineering companies created between 2006 and 2012 had an immigrant founder. In Silicon Valley, that figure is 44%.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin looks on during a news conference at Google headquarters on September 25, 2012 in Mountain View, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

The study also showed that the proportion of immigrant founders in Silicon Valley declined since 2005 and warned that this should “raise questions about the United States’ future ability to remain economically competitive in the international market.”

Immigration InFlux

Despite the documented benefits of immigration, the current Trump administration has taken a different view, cracking down on not just illegal, but legal immigration as well. In April, Trump signed an executive order calling for a review of the H-1B visa program and promised to change the rules. While loopholes in the H-1B program have been abused by outsourcing companies, the current increased scrutiny has made life difficult for legitimate H-1B visa applicants.

Already, the process has become more arduous. Applicants are also being asked to submit additional evidence proving that their jobs are complex and require hiring from abroad. In addition, there are also more “targeted site visits” at company offices by immigration officers, who evaluate whether or not the employers are "evading their obligation to make a good faith effort to recruit U.S. workers," according to the government-issued press release.

Mabell Aguilar, general counsel at Singularity University, an organization that helps tech startups through various educational programs and an incubator, said that anecdotally, she’s seeing foreign startup founders encounter more difficulties with their plans to continue growing in the U.S.

“We’re getting a lot more questions and being asked for more assistance,” she said, adding that Singularity University has added expert legal resources for applicants. Some of the new executive orders have required additional vetting but the vetting is not clearly defined, she explained.

As a result, some foreign entrepreneurs are choosing to stay in their home countries.

Aguilar said that, in a few cases, she's seeing some small companies with foreign founders decide that their odds of being able to stay in the U.S. are not good so they decide to stay in their home country instead.

"They come with the hope of establishing viable innovation technology-based company and H-1B is a pathway for the founders to be able to stay in the U.S. If these young companies decide not to come to the U.S. and establish roots in the U.S. business ecosystem, that doesn’t bode well for the U.S. which is losing opportunities to increase jobs,” she said.

David Brown, a serial entrepreneur and founder of Techstars, which helps startups through programs, accelerator programs and investment, said he’s noted a feeling among foreign entrepreneurs that they are not wanted.

“There’s been a massive amount of uncertainty that didn't exist under the previous administration. Even if you have a visa, there's fear that it'll be revoked or taken at the border. Some foreign founders also say there's a feeling that we're not wanted here and it’s driving people to second guess if they want to start businesses in the U.S.,” he said.

Many entrepreneurs are worried that even if they are issued a U.S. visa, it will be revoked at the border under a Trump administration. (Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images)

Originally from Canada, Brown came to the U.S. because of the opportunity. “I'm an immigrant entrepreneur myself, it's a topic I care a lot about. Bringing business to the U.S. - it's the reasons I'm here.”

Options Outside the U.S.

While the U.S. remains an attractive place for business, it is becoming less friendly to foreign entrepreneurs because of immigration policies. Meanwhile, other countries are courting entrepreneurs and doing what they can to attract startups. France, for instance, announced a new tech visa program at the beginning of the year. Canada has launched a new program to fast-track visas and short-term work permits for highly skilled foreign workers. The Toronto-Waterloo corridor has become something of a tech hotbed, boosted by talent from University of Waterloo, tax credits and other government incentives and its proximity to the U.S. market.

In Asia, the tech startup scene has exploded in recent years. So far in 2017, $19.3 billion has been invested in Asia-based tech companies, according to CB Insights. Deals are on pace to increase by 14% over 2016 totals while funding is poised to grow by 132%, the firm said in its May Asia Tech Investment Report.

“The U.S. is still a huge magnet, but much less so,” said Brown. Brown has recently encountered a few circumstances in which a startup encounters visa concerns. “As a business, we redirect them to Paris or Toronto instead. But as an American, it’s unfortunate.”

Silicon Valley has long benefitted from the ingenuity of foreign entrepreneurs. Anti-immigration policies are making it harder for foreigners to pursue their startup dreams in the U.S. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

“The U.S. is the land where dreams come true if you work hard. Americans love the underdog story. They are willing to give anyone a chance. They will pick you up if you stumble. This is something that doesn't exist almost anywhere in the rest of the world. I love the U.S. and the mentality here. For foreign-born people like me, being born in the U.S. is like having won the lottery. We know it's a privilege to be here, and it forces us to work even harder,” said Baderkhan.